It Should Have Been Me

I should not be here. For you to understand what I mean, I should take you to a time before He and I ever met.  With Easter just around the corner, we must remember that Friday comes before Sunday.  I want to take you back to a room.  There is nothing spectacular about that room, mind you.  It was just a humble place where Jesus gathered together with His disciples for a Passover supper.  That had seem to be a common theme of the ministry of this man Jesus.  Extraordinary events happened in ordinary places and through ordinary people.  Let me repeat, I should not be here.  But because I am, I must tell you this story.

It is the Passover season.  It was a bit unusual though.  Jesus participated in the Passover supper a full day before the official celebrations were to take place.  In fact, Luke tells us that “And He said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God." (Luke 22:15-16).  He knew!  He knew what was coming.  He knew what He was getting ready to endure!  You would think that if you knew that trouble was coming on the level that He faced, you would simply run away, but He did not!  In fact, He willingly faced them. 

They said He was God, but He did something you could not imagine God doing in that room.  He knelt down and washed the feet of His disciples.  There is something else that happened in that room.  One of his own, betrayed Him.  For 30 pieces of silver.  Jesus even knew who it was.  He told him!  His disciple, they called him Judas, left.  30 pieces of silver.  The same price paid for a slave killed by an ox according to Old Testament law.  This man who had healed the sick, caused the blind to see, made the lame to walk, calmed the storm and the seas, and even raised the dead was betrayed for a price of a slave killed by an animal!  They say everyone has a price, apparently Judas price to give up Jesus was equivalent to four month’s wages.  He became so guilty by what he had done that he hung himself. 

Then there is His other disciple, Peter.  Peter tells Jesus "Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death!" (Luke 22:33).  But oh what irony.  Jesus is arrested and three different times Peter denied knowing or being with Jesus.  In fact, Jesus tells Peter that He would.  He tells him that before a rooster crowed twice that Peter would deny Him.  Can you imagine it?  Peter is approached by a young girl who finger him and tells him that He was with Jesus and He responded that He was not.  On two other occasions Peter is fingered and just as in the first, he denies knowing or being with Jesus!  Then in the distance a rooster crowed…..twice. 

            It was during His second trial with Herod that I met Him.  I had heard the crowd from my cell.  Their chants and their shouts echoed down the halls of the dungeon.  You could hear their words tinged with anger.  The soldiers had come to get me.  I was afraid.  I did not want to face that crowd.  The soldiers uttered words like “madman”, “lunatic”, “he’s getting what he deserves.” I just knew in my heart what they wanted to do to me.  I was a robber and a murderer.  Surely they were ready to sentence me to death.  After all, that was the consequences of my actions.  The sun was just beginning to rise.  As the crowd raged in a unified chant, I made out the words “Crucify Him!  Crucify Him!  I was not ready!  I was not ready!  Then I saw Him.  His face covered with streams of blood that flowed from the wounds caused by the thorns of the rustic crown made from a thorny brush.  He was naked.  His back, was torn and ripped.  His eyes, met mine.  I saw something in His eyes that I have never seen before.  I saw….compassion.

Pilate brought me and Jesus before the crowd.  He gave them a choice.  I cringed for their answer.  What I heard surprised me.  “Free Barrabas!  Free Barrabas!  Crucify Jesus!  Crucify Jesus!”  Me?!  They were telling Pilate to release me?  What had this man done?  What could have been a worse crime than mine that they were willing to free me but crucify Jesus?  I looked to Him for an answer but He just stood there, motionless.  I looked at the crowd, their eyes glared with hatred.  Their fists clenched.  Their lips pursed with words so vile.  A soldier came to cut the ropes that bound me.  I was free!  Just like that.  Then it dawned on me as I watched them take Jesus away……He was taking my place.  That should have been me.  I should have been the one they were taking away.  Do you know why they were punishing Him?  They did not like what He had to say.  He never killed anyone.  In fact, He brought people to life.  He never hurt anyone, in fact He healed those who were hurting.  I rubbed my wrist!  I traced the imprints of the braided rope that they had bound me with.  Freedom.  I had freedom because of this man named Jesus.

I followed them.  Oh the irony and the shame.  They forced Him to carry the cross.  The 300 pound instrument that they had devised to torture and to kill, they forced him to carry. I listened to every labored breath as he struggled down the path.  They taunt Him.  They hit him!  They pulled the hair from His beard.  I saw His mother.  A tear streaming down her cheek.  I know she could not have liked this.  I wanted to tell her, but the lump in my throat seemed to block any words that I needed to say.  Oh how I wanted to tell her…..that should have been me. 

He struggled and fell.  They pulled a man from the crowd and forced him to help Jesus carry the cross.  I watched as he knelt down beside Jesus.  I watched as he placed the cross on his shoulder.  This man named Simon looked briefly into Jesus’ eyes.  I wondered if he saw the same thing I saw.

As I followed the rugged beams filled with splinters, my eyes traced the road before us until it reached a hill.  There were two crosses already there.  Golgotha.  A place of a skull.  It is a place where criminals were executed.  It was our destination.  As we finally arrived, I saw two other thieves.  As the cross was laid on the ground they forced Jesus onto His back.  Then the sounds of ringing hammer filled the air.  At the strike of each hammer, the crowd erupted into a cheer.  Three nails.  One through each hands and one through his feet.  They lifted the cross into the sky and placed Jesus between the two crosses that was already there.  I watched him struggle to breathe.  He would pull himself up to inhale and as He exhaled, he would drop himself.  Oh the searing pain of those nails.  As I watched Him, I was watching Him take my place. 

Did they hear what I heard?  “Father forgive them.”  Why would He forgive them?  They beat Him.  They called Him names.  They tortured Him?  They shamed Him.  But yet those very words were uttered as He labored to breathe.  Why would He forgive me?  I killed someone.  I robbed.  That should have been me in the middle!  I should be on that cross.  I looked into His eyes and I saw it again.  Love…compassion.  But they didn’t.  They continued to mock Him.  Deride Him.  Ridicule Him.  They questioned Him.  They questioned whether He is the Son of God.  They dared him to prove who He said He really was.  “Come down from the cross!”  Even one of the thieves hanging with Him said “Save yourself and us if you are really Christ.”  He was even getting in on the act.  But the other one.  He asked Jesus to remember Him in paradise.  As He responded, I saw it again.  Love.  Compassion.  He said “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”  Wow.  What an amazing love! 

It was about noon as I continued to watch Him and the sky grew dark.  His face gazed towards the sky and he said “Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani.”  If this really was God’s Son, what words were just uttered.  What Jesus said means “My God, My God, what have You forsaken me?”  God turned away from His Son in this moment of suffering.  They said that it was here when Jesus began to bear the sins of the world.  My sins!  He was bearing my sins and because of it, God could not look upon His own son anymore.  The sins that I should have been punished for, He was being punished for them!  Then He looked at me.  I saw it again.  A tear streamed down my cheek!  It should have been me, but no, He took my place!  His suffering became so intense that He cried “I thirst!´ Yet, they gave him vinegar to drink!”  It should have been me.

It was getting close to three in the afternoon and the darkness continued. He was nearing His sixth hour of hanging on that cruel instrument of torture.  “It is finished.”  As I looked at Him, I pondered those words.  What was finished?  Was He going to finally get down?  Will they finally quit this senseless torture of an innocent man?  I just wanted to scream “Let Him go!” In one last breath, He said “Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.”  The ground shook, the graves of the local cemetery opened up, the curtain of the temple was torn into two.  A soldier stood beneath the cross gazed up into His lifeless face that had shown love throughout his life and through His death said “Truly He was the Son of God.”  A spear was thrust into His side and water and blood trickled down the rugged beams into a puddle on the sand beneath the cross.  It was over.  He was dead.  It should have been me….

Do you hear that?  Do you hear the commotion?  The news is spreading.  Something has happened at Jesus’ tomb.  I have to go see what has happened…..What Amazing Love!  My King!